


(Closer to Being) Two

by euhemeria



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [91]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Infertility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: "You," Angela says, as she pulls a large bag of flour from their pantry and sets it on the counter, "Are going to help me bake."Or,With Angela's help, Fareeha starts to come to terms with the fact that their family might not look like she dreamed it would.
Relationships: Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [91]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/508281
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	(Closer to Being) Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bigsleepy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsleepy/gifts).



> **CW: discussion of miscarriage/infant loss** , there are no specific details, but if its a topic thats triggering for u then u may wanna skip this one
> 
> anyway. again a few hrs too late to be on the correct day of hanukkah... BUT... a fic for the third day in a row. so thats nothing to sneeze at imo

Generally, it is inadvisable to mix personal and professional relationships, is a danger to relationship and to the workplace dynamic both. Fareeha and Angela know this, they do; it is why they try their hardest not to discuss work related decisions after the day has ended, to leave their professional identities at the door to their quarters, lest their professional disagreements, as important and passionate as they may be, do not sour their relationship. It is not possible to keep things separate entirely, but they try, because most often, even when they disagree, it is not because of their ethics, but their preferred methods, and both of them know, at the end of the day, that the other has the best interests of the world at heart. This, too, is a reason to keep their professional life separate from their personal life, in its own way—they do not want their loyalty to one another, their trust in one another’s judgement, to cloud their own decisions, do not want for it to close them off to others’ suggestions, to solutions that they might, together, overlook. It would not be right, would not be fair, and worst of all, would not be what is best for the people Overwatch has made its mission to protect.

As best as they are able, therefore, Fareeha and Angela avoid mixing the personal and professional. It is not easy to do so, living together on base, and working side by side with their friends, and, in Fareeha’s case, family, but it is important, nonetheless, that they are able to say that they have tried their best, particularly now that Overwatch is attempting to once again achieve some form of legitimacy. What they have is important to them, but so, too, is their work, and although they know that they are capable of juggling the two, they do not want to give anyone else reason to doubt that fact.

(Privately, however, Fareeha does feel that they have not done as good a job, as of late, as they did in the past, of juggling things. With what they are going through right now, it is hard to keep her mind on work—which has meant that, when she is in the office, she has tried doubly hard to be strictly professional. Even if her personal life is a mess, she can have this, her career.)

Therefore it comes as quite the surprise, when Fareeha meets Angela in her office for what Angela had _said_ was an important meeting, only to find that Angela is tidying up her desk, and is already ready to leave, shoes switched from the comfortable ones she wears while working alone, and into the more professional heels she puts on just to walk to and from her office, for the sake of appearances.

“I thought you said you needed me for something?” Fareeha asks her, confused—it is not like Angela to forget an appointment.

“I do,” says Angela, moving past Fareeha and towards the door. “At home.”

Although Fareeha follows, she does still have her reservations, because, “We’re supposed to be working right now.”

A hum from Angela, in agreement, but she does not stop, or slow, “We are, but one afternoon off isn’t so terrible. We worked late Wednesday, and you said yourself this morning that you had a light afternoon.”

“That doesn’t mean we can just—we _never_ do this,” they are, both of them, perhaps a bit too dedicated to their work. Leaving early is simply not in Fareeha’s nature, and she did not think it was in Angela’s either.

“Exactly,” Angela says, turning to look at her rather pointedly. What that is supposed to mean, Fareeha is not certain, but they are interrupted, then, by Aleks greeting them as they pass each other in the hallway, and Fareeha thinks it best, perhaps, to wait to ask what Angela means by that until they have returned to their quarters, where they cannot be overheard.

But, by the time they have arrived, the moment has passed, and Fareeha is not sure how to bring it up again, not knowing what Angela meant in the first place. So she does not ask, only follows Angela as they exchange their shoes for house slippers and move into the kitchen.

“You,” Angela says, as she pulls a large bag of flour from their pantry and sets it on the counter, “Are going to help me bake.”

“I am?” Usually, they do not spend any time in the kitchen together. Most of the time, it is Angela who cooks, and she is not the sort to want help while she does things, and on the occasions when Fareeha is the one making something, it feels unfair to ask her wife to join her, given that it is so often Angela who makes their meals already—even if Angela insists that she quite likes cooking, does not mind joining in.

Granted, cooking is not baking. Fareeha cannot bake at all, and Angela, who can, does not like to do so, which is yet another reason why this is such an unusual request.

“You are,” Angela affirms. “I didn’t buy challah this week, and I need it done before sundown.”

“I could go to the store?” Fareeha offers. They have more than four hours yet, and surely it is quicker to do that than to bake from scratch.

Still adding ingredients to the counter—eggs, vegetable oil, sugar, yeast—Angela replies, “You’re right, but I’d like to teach you how to do this. I meant to teach you last night, and freeze the dough, but we got a bit distracted.”

“Well,” Fareeha says, “Alright. But I hope you remember what happened the last time I tried to bake something…”

(Fareeha might not have inherited her mother’s inability to cook, but it seems her baking skills are on par with her mother’s, with the exception of cookies.)

“That’s why I’m teaching you,” Angela tells her. “Challah was the first thing my mother let me help her make, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

Privately, Fareeha has her doubts, thinks that it defies logic, her ability to mess up pastries, breads, and cakes even when following all instructions—but Angela so rarely talks about her own family, or tries to teach anything, that Fareeha thinks it best to go along.

True to Angela’s word, the steps are not difficult. Whisking oil and yeast, beating eggs, mixing in the sugar, salt, and flour until it becomes uniform in consistency, these are things Fareeha can do. It is the next step she struggles with, the kneading. Usually, she overworks the dough, or underworks it for fear of overworking it. This time, however, Angela is in the kitchen with her, stands behind Fareeha on her tiptoes, rests her chin on Fareeha’s shoulder, and puts her hands over Fareeha’s own, guides her through the process.

For someone who usually is so terrible at teaching things, at explaining how she gets from one step to the next, Angela is doing a good job of this, of showing Fareeha the best way, rather than trying to tell her. Fareeha appreciates the effort, tells her so, and hope that, maybe, Angela will say what this is all really about, but Angela only waves off the compliment, and suggests that if Fareeha left anything in her office she might want to get it now, while they leave the dough to rise for an hour.

It _is_ a good idea, but Fareeha did not leave anything—for security reasons, she always makes sure her office is locked up properly before she goes anywhere, even to lunch, and Fareeha is not the person to brush aside her curiosity for long, is the sort who needs to have answers to her questions.

“I’m good,” she tells Angela, and then, after both of them have sat down on their couch, settled in to wait for the dough to rise, “Are you going to tell me what all this is about?”

“You were very interested in learning to bake last year,” Angela tells her, and that is true, but something in the way her wife is looking past Fareeha, over her shoulder towards the door behind her, makes Fareeha think that there is more to this than that. “I know you gave up but—I should’ve helped you, then.”

“I didn’t give up,” Fareeha tells her, “It just isn’t important, anymore.”

(Back then, they were talking about having a child, and Fareeha was trying to learn how to bake as quickly as possible so that when the time came, she would be able to teach her child to bake, the way her aunt taught her cousin—the way some part of Fareeha wishes her mother had been able to teach her. It seems like something mothers often do with their children, something Angela’s mother did with her, something that Fareeha wanted to be able to do, if their child would have wanted it. At the time, it was something Fareeha thought she would need to know, and soon, but here they are, a year and a half and two miscarriages later, and the chance of them becoming mothers anytime soon seems low. Continuing to try baking became a painful reminder of how hopeful she had been, so early on, how sure she was that she would fall pregnant as easily as her mother had with her, that motherhood was something that would just happen to her, rather than being something she would have to work for.)

“Isn’t it?” Angela’s voice is not hurt, quite, but it has a fragile quality to it that Fareeha has come to associate with discussions regarding their attempts to become parents. Lately, they have been avoiding talking about it at all, but there was a period, before this silence, when it felt like the only thing they talked about. 

Before she speaks, Fareeha takes a measured breath in. She has been defensive, about all this, about what she considers to be a failure on her own part to make them mothers, has not liked to have it brought up, because they do not know, yet, why she has had so much trouble with getting and staying pregnant, but it _feels_ like her fault, to her, feels like her fault that their life as they planned it is falling to the wayside, her fault that Angela cries in the bathroom at night when she thinks Fareeha is sleeping, her fault that the baby they came to love might never come to be. It was she who insisted that they at least try this, before adoption, was she who led the two of them to become so invested in the idea of a pregnancy, a baby whom they could talk to while it was still in the womb. 

To talk about this, about anything related to it, is painful, and the disappointment, the anger Fareeha feels towards herself, she does not want to redirect towards Angela. In truth, it is no one’s fault. So she breathes, and says, “I guess it’s not unimportant, it’s just—I thought we’d be mothers by now, or at least close. But we’re not, so there’s not… I don’t have to rush to learn anything in time.”

(She does not say, but thinks, that it is possible that there might never be a baby in their future, might not be a child, for that matter, because with their jobs, their status as an interracial and interfaith gay couple, they are not the most attractive candidates for placing a baby with. If she said that, she knows, Angela would argue, would insist that this will happen for them somehow, someday, and she cannot stand to see how much the idea would terrify her wife, so she stays mum, but she thinks—no, knows—that it would be too painful for her, to learn to bake for a baby which never comes to be, to realize that she will never be able to fulfill that dream of teaching her child some of the things she associates with normal happy families, ones where the mother did not spend the first few years of her child’s life away fighting in the Omnic Crisis.)

“You said,” Angela pauses, corrects herself, “Or, I remember you saying, something about how you always wanted to be able to bake for your family.”

“I did,” Fareeha agrees, but did they not just establish the fact that it seems like the two of them are not going to be having a child any time soon? “We don’t have a baby, though, Angela.”

That was the wrong thing to say, because although Angela tries to hide it, Fareeha sees the flash of pain that crosses her wife’s face. Before she can apologize, though, can rephrase, can soften things, Angela speaks. 

“I don’t mean to suggest,” Angela starts, stops. “I’m not giving up on us being a family. I’m not. But I also think… We’ve spent an awful lot of time focusing on it, haven’t we?”

“Well,” Fareeha agrees, “Yes,” but she does not see what is so unusual about that. When one experiences a loss, it is normal, to need time to grieve, and particularly after the second miscarriage, the one at 17 weeks, there was a lot both of them had to say. They had almost no one else to talk to about it, and even if Ana and Jesse were hurting, too, it was not their loss, in the way it was Angela and Fareeha’s, so it seems natural that the two of them have been talking a lot, recently, about this, about their struggle to become parents. Other things just feel unimportant, in the face of that grief. “Do you think we shouldn’t have been?”

“No,” Angela says, puts a hand on Fareeha’s knee, comforting as she can be, “No I didn’t mean—I just think we…” Another pause. “I miss the way things were before.”

“I do, too.” Before saying it, Fareeha did not know she felt that way, but now that it is out in the world, she cannot take the thought back.

Silence, then, as Angela pulls Fareeha in for a hug, holds her so tightly it is just a little painful. Fareeha is grateful for the touch, even if it brings her perilously close to crying, being put face to face with grieving not only the lost pregnancies, but the loss, too, of the hope they felt, before, the confidence they had that things would work out for the two of them the way they wanted, as if the power of their love and determination could see them through anything.

But love is, sometimes, not enough, and the reality of that fact is terribly painful. So they sit with it, in silence, for what else have they to say about the matter?

Nothing, or nothing that words could hold, in any case.

Eventually, however, Angela’s kitchen timer beeps, and she lets go of Fareeha, goes to pull the bread from the oven, where she left it to rise.

“Are you coming?” asks she.

Fareeha is surprised by the question—baking something together is not going to address the fact that they are still childless, is not going to remove the pain of that, or take them back to a time before any of this, when they did not even feel that there was anything, any _one_ , missing from their lives. “Do you need me?”

“The dough won’t punch itself down,” Angela tells her, “And I still haven’t taught you how to do that.”

Fareeha rises, then, to join her, but finds herself asking, even as she does so, “Are you sure you need to teach me?”

“I don’t need to,” Angela says, demonstrating to Fareeha to make a fist, and then guiding Fareeha’s arm through the motions of punching down. “But you said you wanted to learn to bake with your family, so I’m going to make that happen.”

“This isn’t—” Fareeha pulls her arm back as soon as Angela releases it, apparently satisfied with how the dough was punched. “You teaching me to bake isn’t going to fix this, Angela.”

“I know that,” Angela’s voice is not sharp, but rather a little wounded. “Do you think I don’t want—that I don’t wish I could do more? But I can’t. I know I can’t.” She does not look at Fareeha as she puts the dough back into the oven. “It has to rise again,” she explains, voice forced into something calm, and pleasant. “You always let it rise twice.”

“Okay,” Fareeha says. And then, after Angela has set the timer again. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just trying to help.”

“I’m not,” Angela says, “Or—not like that. When I said I wasn’t giving up on us having a child—I’m not. But I do think that we need to stop putting our lives on hold until we become parents.”

That hardly seems a fair assessment. “We’re not—”

“We _are._ We have been. What have we done together as a couple recently that hasn’t involved—what has just been about us?”

Nothing, Fareeha realizes. Nothing that immediately comes to mind, anyway. Far too many of their conversations have eventually circled back to this, to their present childlessness, or have been entirely about work, where their personal life has no place, as a way of pushing the pain of all this aside. “Oh,” says she.

“Precisely,” Angela tells her, taking Fareeha’s hands in her own. “You wanted to learn how to bake as a family. Now we have.”

“We’re not—”

“We are,” Angela insists, conviction in her voice clear. “We _are_ a family, Fareeha. And I’d like for us to be parents, to add a child to our family, but not having a baby doesn’t take what we have now away from us.”

Calling themselves a family scares Fareeha, because it feels like an admission that they might never have a child, might always be just the two of them, but afraid as Fareeha is to put that thought to words, it is nonetheless a possibility. Perhaps it is time she tried to accept that chance.

“I don’t want to give up on having children,” Fareeha says, “I don’t want—”

“We aren’t giving up,” Angela tells her. “I promise. I’m just trying to appreciate what we have now, because this, you—it’s more than I imagined, before we met, and I don’t want to take it for granted, don’t want to forget that.”

“ _Angela_ ,” Fareeha says, moves closer, releases one of Angela’s hands so she can cup her cheek, “I don’t want to take you for granted either, not ever.”

They are a family, they, and her mother, and their closest friends. They are not the sort of family Fareeha dreamed of, when she was younger, do not have a house, a pet, a child to dote upon. They are two people who work too hard, for too many hours a week, but who do not fault one another for that, are two people who want a child, but whose love is not defined by that wanting, has always been about something more. They are coworkers, and friends, and lovers, and they might never be parents, but they _are_ a family, the two of them, and they have with them the people they have chosen to surround themselves with, who love them differently, but love them nonetheless.

What they have now—it is good, and it works, even if it is not everything they wanted. Maybe one day, they will have more, will be more, but for now, this is enough for them. They were happy enough, before, the two of them, and they can learn to find that happiness again, whatever the future holds.

Together, they can survive this. They have love enough between them, have, too, the love of others. They have hopes, and they have dreams, and they have time, yet, to find new ones, if need be.

They are a family, just as they are.

**Author's Note:**

> i meant to get more into the mechanics of making challah in this fic but then it just didnt fit w the flow of conversation. BOO
> 
> anyway. enjoyed is the wrong word for this fic probably but i hope u got smtg out of it, i guess? id still like to know ur thoughts & hope ur having a good day/night/whatever


End file.
